By Longest Covid infection lasted more than 16 months
UK doctors have said they believe to have documented the longest Covid infection on record, from a patient they treated for the virus.
The patient reportedly had detectable levels of the virus for more than 16 months, around 505 days.
The unnamed person in question had underlying health conditions and died in hospital back in 2021.
The patient had a severely weakened immune system they stated, that most people ‘naturally’ fight the virus.
The patient had caught Covid in early 2020, having symptoms and being confirmed by a PCR test, reportedly being in and out of hospital over the following 72 weeks.
On the occasions recorded they tested positive for the virus, meaning they still had Covid at those times.
The doctors concluded it was the same infection rather than reoccurring repeated infections, they could not overcome the illness, even with antiviral medication.
One of the medics, Dr. Luke Blagdon, involved in the study will be presenting the findings at a medical conference.
He told the BBC: “These were throat swab tests that were positive each time. The patient never had a negative test. And we can tell it was one continuous infection because the genetic signature of it- the information we got from sequencing the viral genome- was unique and constant in that patient.”
Prolonged infections are rare but important, according to the researchers who suggest they might give rise to new variants of the virus.
Dr. David Strain from the University of Exeter Medical School, said “We know that every time the virus replicates, it must reproduce its RNA- equivalent to manually copying a textbook. We know if we were to transcribe an entire book we would make mistakes, so too does the virus.”
